Last Girl Standing

by Jackson, Lisa

  “My husband’s friends with one of the partners at Amanda’s firm, and he just raved about her,” Rhonda declared. She’d then leaned in and whispered, “She always was intense.”

  Not such a do-gooder anymore, Zora had realized, and she and Rhonda had dished a bit about Amanda.

  But though Zora was mildly irked at Amanda’s success, she didn’t feel the anger and despair she did toward her that she did toward Delta. Amanda could have her career. Go for it, girl. But Delta . . . with her husband and baby . . .

  Max was the problem.

  And what if, though no one was saying it, Zora’s inability to conceive was his problem, not hers? What if she’d just picked the wrong guy? What if somebody else could do the trick? She was twenty-eight years old, and her eggs weren’t getting any younger. How many years was she supposed to wait?

  She growled low in her throat and then, with an effort, pushed those thoughts from her head and concentrated on driving to the event, but as she negotiated the traffic, the niggling thought that she needed to rethink her marriage kept circling back to the forefront of her mind. It wasn’t a new thought, but it was one that was growing in intensity. Becoming increasingly critical. A decision had to be made and soon. That goddamn biological clock.

  Maybe . . . maybe it was time to look for someone new.

  She considered. She needed some sperm. Preferably rich sperm . . . and smart sperm. Not Max’s sperm, apparently. Someone else’s.

  Well, she was heading to a reunion. There oughta be plenty there.

  * * *

  Delta pulled up the Spanx over her legs and torso with an effort. A year, they’d said. A year to lose the baby weight. Well, it had been a year, and though she’d dropped ten of the extra twenty pounds she’d put on, the second ten were being really stubborn. Her mother had flapped a hand at her when she’d complained. “You look beautiful. You were always too skinny.”

  This was patently untrue, but Delta appreciated Mom saying so. But now it was reunion time, and she felt almost queasy thinking about the silent body shaming she could expect from the Five Firsts.

  Four firsts, she reminded herself, as she had every time since graduation that she’d thought about the name they’d christened their group.

  Resignedly, she eyed her figure. The Spanx took care of the worst of the softness around her waist, but it was hellishly uncomfortable.

  “Beauty hurts,” she reminded herself through her teeth.

  “What?” Tanner asked as he moved into their master bath. He was half-dressed, his shirt unbuttoned, his tie loose around his neck. Were they going to be overdressed? she wondered. Though the invitation had specified formal wear for a dinner at the West Knoll Golf Club, the venue and food were generally pretty casual.

  She was embarrassed to be seen in the Spanx and slid out of the room and quickly grabbed up the dress she’d purchased for this occasion. It was yellow, a lemony shade that she’d fretted over but that set off her dark hair and the tan she’d developed this summer. Her shoes were champagne-colored strappy sandals with a shorter heel than she would’ve liked, but the color was perfect.

  She quickly dressed and then pinned up her dark hair into a loose bun. She added wide gold hoops to her ears and surveyed the results. She’d already put on makeup earlier. Not bad. The Spanx made her image bearable.

  Tanner came out of the bathroom, smelling like citrus aftershave, buttoning up his shirt. Delta smiled at him, more sure of herself now that she was dressed. Their lovemaking had taken a hit since Owen’s birth—well, since her pregnancy . . . and maybe even before that.

  “Who’s taking care of ‘O’?” he asked in an offhand way.

  Delta was a little surprised he’d even asked. He didn’t concern himself with the baby in any way. He’d been happy when Owen had taken his first steps and toddled his way, saying, “Look at that!” and then he’d gotten on his cell phone and left the room to talk “business” with one of his people.

  People . . .

  Although he mostly covered up his conversations, she’d heard him snickering a time or two, joking, slyly muttering some double entendres. Those people were females, almost to a one, Delta believed.

  Somehow, over the course of their marriage, maybe their whole relationship, she’d become the mother to both him and Owen.

  Maybe you always were.

  “Mom’s coming over,” she answered. Like always. If you ever paid attention.

  “You look nice. How do I look?” he asked, holding each end of his tie and thrusting out his hips, striking a pose.

  “Good.”

  “Just good?” He smiled at her. His sexy smile. Delta smiled back faintly.

  “Superb,” she said.

  He laughed and finished tying his tie, smoothing it down in front, looking at himself in the full-length mirror that Delta had moved out of the way of. Tanner was a peacock. She hadn’t known that when they were young. How had she not known that? Was she that love-blind?

  “I talked to Woody,” he revealed. “He’s going to be there with Crystal.”

  Woody had married his on-again, off-again girlfriend from high school, Crystal of the tattoos and penchant for Goth attire. Into crystals, like her name, and eschewing any kind of high school traditions, or expectations, or day-to-day experiences. She had rejected coming to the fateful pig roast barbecue, but had always had a lot of opinions about it and what they all should have done. McCrae might have accused Delta of sounding judgmental like Ellie, but Crystal beat both of them by a mile.

  “Maybe we should get a table together,” Tanner suggested.

  Delta made a noncommittal sound. She supposed that would be fine, though it might be a tad awkward as Delta had made a big deal out of marrying Dr. Tanner Stahd, even before he completed med school, implying that he would be so successful, bragging about how quickly he’d made it through school.

  “Couldn’t have done it without Delta,” Tanner always said with that same sexy smile that somehow negated his words, when in reality Delta had worked day and night making sure he made it through, dragging him awake when he was near exhaustion, quizzing him over and over again, helping him with presentations. Tanner was a quick study, but he also had a wide streak of laziness, and it was only through Delta’s constant organization and rigid timetable that he squeaked through without being shit-canned.

  But those days were behind them. He was just finishing up his residency at Laurelton General, and he already had one foot in the door of his father’s clinic. Delta had been working hard to make sure the clinic’s reputation improved from the sort of new-age herbs and potions his father had peddled to a full-on facility where Tanner could take over from long-in-the-tooth Dr. Gervais, who was regarded by most as a sweet old quack.

  They left for the event in Tanner’s BMW. It was ten years old, a graduation gift from his parents, and there was a ding in its right front fender. “Pretty soon,” Tanner often told her. “Pretty soon we’ll be living the life we were meant to have.”

  Delta stared out the passenger window at the streets of West Knoll, an eclectic residential area with some yards neatly trimmed, others ragged and bursting with dandelions in the summer heat. Delta helped pay the mortgage on their house with her hours at Smith & Jones and the part-time bookkeeping she did for the clinic. She’d never minded the work. She’d always been looking for the big payoff when Tanner was on his own, but maybe he needed to specialize to really raise his salary and their standard of living. That would be another three to four years. Was it worth it, or could the clinic be enough? Maybe they could find another doctor to share expenses and—

  “Why are you so quiet?” Tanner broke into her thoughts.

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Oh, the business, I guess.”

  “Well, stop thinking about it. We’ve got a reunion to go to. People to impress. You’re a doctor’s wife, Delta Stahd. Time for you to strut your stuff.”

  Delta didn’t res
pond. She remembered how she felt that day he’d come to her and announced that Amanda was pregnant. Even now, Delta wasn’t sure if she’d been more upset that he’d had sex with her “friend” or that he just seemed to think it was a tragedy for him, no one else. Delta had gone to hell and back in those days and weeks before Tanner had told her Amanda had miscarried.

  Was she ever really pregnant?

  When he’d believed Amanda was pregnant, Tanner had told Delta how much he loved her, how sorry he was, how his life was over . . . the life they should have had together. Delta had spent hours in her room sick and crying, alternating between hating Amanda and Tanner, and anguished that she’d lost one of her best friends and the man she loved in one fell swoop. To this day, she didn’t know the full truth of it, but one thing was clear: they’d both betrayed her because neither was denying that they’d made love.

  Made love . . . She hated that euphemism. It made it sound like it was almost okay to cheat. You were making love, a beautiful act of sharing. Except they’d been screwing like rabbits on Zora DeMarco’s pool table.

  Delta could feel how tense she was as they pulled up to the golf club. She’d teamed her dress with a white loose-knit shawl tossed over her shoulders. She braced herself. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to see anyone. She didn’t want to be with Tanner, but here he was, holding out his arm to her, enjoying his bit of gallantry.

  The first person she ran into was Bailey Quintar, who, upon seeing Tanner and her approaching, held open the door. Bailey was dressed in a blue skirt and blouse and flat black shoes. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, like always, although she’d fashioned it bun-like at the back of her head. She had on discreet silver stud earrings, and she wore more makeup than she had in high school, which wasn’t hard as she’d worn practically none in those days.

  “Hi,” Delta greeted her, suddenly filled with warm emotion upon seeing her old friend.

  “Hi.” Bailey’s response wasn’t nearly as welcoming. She gave Tanner a sideways look, then stepped back to let them enter.

  “How’ve you been?” Delta asked.

  “Better,” she said.

  Better? From getting over Carmen’s death?

  Tanner practically bolted away from both Bailey and Delta as soon as they entered, and he spied some of the old classmates hanging around the keg, which was set on the ground a few feet away from a punch bowl that graced the center of a table covered by a white tablecloth.

  Bailey observed, “You’re still with him.”

  Delta regarded her with a raised eyebrow. “We’re married, and we have a son now.”

  “Ah, that’s right. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I was just remembering the last time we talked.”

  “When was that?” Delta asked automatically.

  “At the memorial service for Carmen. You said you wanted them both to die, Tanner and Amanda.”

  Chapter 10

  “I don’t think that’s exactly what I said. I was hurt, and we were all reeling and sad about Carmen. It just was a terrible time.” Delta felt the spit dry in her mouth.

  Bailey offered up a quick smile that fell off her face. “I guess some things just get imprinted in your mind, and you can’t let them go.”

  “Have you seen anyone else here yet?” Delta asked, taking a few steps away from Bailey.

  “Zora.”

  “Ah, I see her,” Delta murmured, though she really didn’t. She thought the person by the back windows might be Zora, though, and she headed in that direction with relief.

  Bailey watched her go, completely aware that Delta was ditching her, also completely aware of why she’d done it. She, Bailey, had become rigid and unforgiving. At least that’s what Delta thought, and probably everyone else at this event. Was that the real her? Maybe. These past ten years had taken their toll, for sure.

  She wandered toward the punch bowl, wondering idly if any of the class miscreants had seen fit to spike the fruity, red liquid. Unlikely, when you could order whatever you wanted at the open bar.

  She poured herself a cupful and then turned around and surveyed the room. Delta was with Zora, though they both looked tense. Onetime roommates. No longer friends.

  The punch was not spiked. But it was full of sugar. After a couple of sips, Bailey looked for a way to get rid of the scarlet concoction. As she was holding the glass, Rhonda Clanton whisked up to her and declared, “What do you think of the punch? It’s got coconut water in it, and it’s yummy! I had it at a baby shower and thought it was divine.”

  “It’s . . . punch-y,” Bailey told the do-gooder.

  “Yes! Exactly!” Rhonda beamed at Bailey and then moved on. She wore a pink skirt and matching twinset. She’d always seemed a little out of another era, and she looked like she hadn’t aged a day since high school. Maybe it was magic punch.

  Bailey surreptitiously set her glass down at the end of the table and walked toward the back wall. She’d made a life for herself at the West Knoll Police Department after several years of college, insisted upon by her father, and several more training at the police academy. It had taken a while to get hired on at West Knoll. There wasn’t a ton of serious crime, and it was considered a plum position, but she finally made it. Now she worked with her father, who seemed to have had a change of heart; he was busting-his-buttons proud of her. The department was small enough that they mostly didn’t have set divisions. She worked B&E and Homicide and everything else, even had a rotation as a traffic cop, and was hoping and planning to work her way up to detective. She liked the job, though she recognized it didn’t feed her soul or fuel her sense of justice like she’d expected it would. After Carmen’s death, she’d just wanted to go nuts on everyone. Someone was responsible for Carmen’s death. She drove her father crazy, and anyone else who crossed her path, with her theories and questions and fury. She had even twisted the truth in her mind, coming up with conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, even if said theories belied what everyone knew to be the truth. Carmen had been lured into the water. Someone had pushed her. Someone had fed her something that caused a cramp. She’d seen something—something she shouldn’t, and that person had killed her over it. When Justin Penske casually asked, “Have you considered suicide over a broken heart?” she’d almost launched herself at him like a wildcat.

  Her obsession nearly cost her her job, as it came up when she applied to the academy. Because she had to, she’d forced herself to tamp down her near-consuming surety that someone, or something, was responsible for Carmen’s death. She had to pretend to let it go.

  “I wanted answers when there were no answers,” she explained in an interview. “I was grieving, and I wanted there to be a reason she was taken.”

  “And now?” the middle-aged woman with the skeptical look on her face had asked.

  “Sometimes there is no reason.”

  But she’d lied. She’d believed then, as she did now, that other factors had been at play when Carmen stepped into the river after Tanner. Suicide? Never. But maybe . . . just maybe . . . needing to prove something? Like that she was strong. Better than the other girls that chased after him? The ones that were too afraid to go in the water.

  Bailey hated that possible answer. Over the years, she’d kept a journal of all the memories of high school and especially those last weeks of their senior year. She’d written her theories down, all her theories and bits of information. She wrote the names down. She put the facts in order and made a time line. She pored over her own work, looking for a key. There were unanswered questions that may or may not have any bearing on the events of that day, but she felt if she just tried hard enough, she would figure it out.

  In the center of her chart was Tanner Stahd. She’d blamed him once, fully, but now she kept those thoughts to herself. Spokes radiated outward from him toward all their friends, the coach, the staff, his parents, everything and everyone connected with West Knoll High and its community.

&nb
sp; Though Bailey had told the academy interviewer she understood that her friend’s death was an accident, inside she believed something else.

  Tanner and his friends had killed Carmen, and she wanted them to pay.

  Greg, her ex-boyfriend, had discovered her journal one day when Bailey had been in a rush and hadn’t locked it away in the wall safe she’d had installed in her apartment. He’d been silent, but she could tell he was spooked. She’d tried to brush it off as part of her therapy after Carmen’s death, but he hadn’t believed her. Shortly thereafter, they’d decided to take time off from each other. That time off had stretched into six months. She had her dog, a small mutt with black-and-white fur and a bad attitude toward anyone but Bailey, which was definitely one of the reasons Greg had left, but the real reason was because he’d found out about her obsession.

  Now, as Bailey looked around the room, seeing her ten-years-older classmates, she tried not to look at them all as complicit in Carmen’s death, but it was nigh impossible. There was Tanner, maybe no longer a teenager, but still a god, by the looks of things. And his acolytes—Woody, Penske, Brad Sumpter, even Trent Collingsworth, one of the do-gooders. She didn’t count McCrae, who was on the force with her, but she’d seen him and Tanner share a few words and a handshake, so yeah, that “bro bond” was still a real thing.

  And then there were the other Firsts—Amanda, Delta, and Zora, and, of course, Ellie. Coach Sutton, the man behind the pig roast, was absent tonight, but a number of the other teachers were in attendance: Anne Reade, Brian Timmons, and Clarice Billings. Also, Freddie Mouton, who’d been a last-minute invite to this reunion, and Amanda’s parents, who, though they weren’t here today, had been embroiled in a lawsuit with both Tanner’s family and Carmen’s afterward, both of which had since been settled.

  You’re the only one who isn’t settled.

  Well, yes, that was true, but even with the passage of time, Bailey hadn’t given up her belief that someone else was responsible. She looked over at Coach Sutton, who was in his late forties now. He’d gotten himself in better shape over the years and looked fit and strong, although the hair at the sides of his temples had completely grayed out. He was talking with Clarice Billings, who had recently taken a job in administration at a junior college, and there were rumors that she might even be heading to a Pac-12 school soon. Her star had definitely risen, but Bailey still recalled how wet and scared and miserable she’d been after falling into the river trying to save Carmen. Anne Reade was standing to one side, trying to appear remote and disinterested in the goings-on of the reunion, but Bailey saw her eyes stray toward Brian Timmons a few times. She was still carrying a torch for the guy? Timmons, for his part, had put on a few pounds, but he still wore the welcoming smile she remembered all through high school, although it was maybe a little sadder. Principal Kiefer was talking to Rhonda Clanton, who’d damn near arranged the whole event by herself, to hear her tell it.